Okay, I am not a lawyer, but given what I know about the tax code, they could have done the individual mandate the following way:
- Impose a direct (per-capita) tax of $695 on everyone.
- Make everyone pay an additional 1% tax on their income.
- Give people who have health insurance a refundable income tax credit of $695 plus 1% of their income.
Each step is well-precedented and I believe constitutional, and by my understanding would generate the a little more income than the provisions in Obamacare.
Of course then it would have had to have been sold as a tax increase.
A flat fee would be a pole tax (head tax- or close to it) and rather regressive. You are going to bring out the pre-war Allamance County Regulation if you keep this up. Pre-war in this case being pre-Revolutionary War.
ReplyDeleteHey, I didn't say it was a good idea, I just said that that would have been legal. As far as regressiveness goes, that is kind of the point, the health care mandate is going to hit hardest the people who earn just a little too much to qualify for Medicaid.
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